


Ad Astra Per Aspera

by Rhyme (Beloved_Rhyme)



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - College/University, Calm Down Erik, Drugs, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gay, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-10 16:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6996202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beloved_Rhyme/pseuds/Rhyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>UNIVERSITY AU - In this universe, mutants are really uncommon, and are still the biggest secret of the government. Charles turns into a terrible drugs-obsessed mess by trying to make the voices inside his head shut up. He's taking biology classes in Oxford to try to understand what is happening to him, and also why. His life is unhealthy on so many levels he might as well be stuck in an elevator going absolutely nowhere.<br/>And then he meets Erik.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. smooth criminal

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! This is a very short beginning and if you're reading this know that I'm sorry if some sentences make absolutely no sense, English not being my first language and all. I'd also like you to know there's going to be a lot of angst around here so if you plan on sticking around be prepared.  
> My thanks to Craig for proofreading like a third of it and not trying to charge me (you can't do that, Craig).  
> My love to Jenni for being the reason I started being really into gay fanfictions.  
> All I've left to Sarah just because.

  
« _Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall._  
_Humpty Dumpty had a great fall._  
_All the king's horses and all the king's men_  
_Couldn't put Humpty together again._ »

 

* * *

 

CHARLES _–  
MARCH 19TH, THREE IN THE MORNING _

His glass breaks like a burst of laughter.  
It's a party of a thousand faces: one of those that you rarely recall and that, in truth, you'd rather forget. Smiles you throw at the crowd like bones at a dog; a common clamor which, numbed by the liquor, slowly fades into whispers. Beyond the faces, there are bodies: hybrid silhouettes dancing & entangling themselves, blending into each other like a gigantic spectacle of shadows. Then come the hands – inevitable.  
Some have chosen to land on Charles: on his hips, first, just where you can feel the bones underneath, then lower and lower, toiling for a moment against the buckle of his belt. It's too large, again - Charles'll have to drill a new hole. Then they're sliding firmly between his thighs, as part of that game of exhibitionism - vaguely unhealthy and terribly academic - that he had, at some point, somehow agreed with, like so many others before him. The hands probably belong to someone Charles knows – someone which, tomorrow, will spare him a nod and perhaps even a half-hearted “hi there, how's the hangover?”. Someone whose absolute stupidity borders on that very special kind of innocence generally associated with animals and young children. Charles isn't playing, though. His hands – pianist's hands, with long and gracious fingers, wasted potential, unable to produce a single note, _unable to produce anything really_ – are hanging lifelessly at his sides, half hidden by the sleeves of the far-too-large sweater in which he wrapped himself that morning. It lasts a few minutes, and the anonymous hands eventually lose interest – tired of his apathy, exhausted already by the absence of that fraud of a passion for which they all seem to look.  
  
Charles doesn't know why he came tonight. He didn't know the last time - he probably won't either when he'll end up back here again. He leaves the room without a word, then the house. Nobody notices him closing the door. They'll hardly remember him being here at all; Charles is unsubstantial - he has that in common with the exhilaritating smoke with which his comrades poison themselves. It's around three in the morning, and the campus is utterly empty. There reigns that very special silence, specific to cemeteries  & terrible accidents - the kind that creeps into the throat and obstructs the trachea, leaving you gasping for air. Charles is walking, putting his feet right between the lines that define the cobblestones, one step, two, five, thirty. He's avoiding the crocodiles – he knows, however, that he has just left them.  
Charles doesn't look at the gigantic trees towering high over his head. He doesn't look at the illustrious buildings he's leaving behind. He doesn't look at the night sky, tremendously wide above the campus, black and purple and blue like a bruise that refuses to heal. Charles is trying his very best not to look at anything at all: maybe if he doesn't look, _he won't hear them._  
He knows full well by now exactly how much time he has left before the voices come back – softly, then unbearably loud all of sudden, a hundred of them inside his head, crying and screaming and telling lies; shoving all those petty thoughts nobody is ever supposed to know about deep inside his crowded mind. Charles knows: he took his pills right before getting actually dressed for the party, having spent his entire day in his less socially acceptable pajamas; right before getting into the shower, fully clothed, letting the cold water flow freely, messing up his hair, leaving him dripping wet; right before having to get dressed again, right before wondering, once more, why he couldn't possibly be just like everyone else. Charles knows, therefore, that he has exactly twenty minutes left to reach home, find the small plastic box he threw somewhere in his scandalously untidy bedroom, try to remember how much of its content he's actually allowed to take in a day, and finally give up and swallow them all.  
Nineteen minutes: Charles runs.

 

* * *

 

  
ERIK _–_  
_MARCH 19TH, AROUND SIX IN THE MORNING_  
  
Erik knows he did it again last night.  
He cannot quite recall the details of the party – does not even remember why it was thrown, if anybody bothered to find any real pretext to drink booze and have sex – but he knows, he _knows_ he did it again. The sun hasn't risen yet, but Erik did, like he always does; they say the world belongs to those who get up early, and Erik is well known for being rather determined to own the world. So, he got up – made the bed, then made breakfast, then made it clear to himself he should never drink _that_ much ever again.  
Erik knows; somehow, it makes him feel uneasy, being so sure he invaded someone's privacy – was it a boy or a girl? He cannot even remember this, _damn it_ – and still being unable to remember _who_ , exactly, was that someone. He would like to give Emma a call, just to make sure she was wasted enough not to notice anything, but it's way too early for her to be out of her bed – or, in all likelihood, someone else's. Furthermore, if he did end up calling her, she would guess immediately what he did last night – _again_ , seriously – and Erik would still be hearing about this on his deathbed, Emma's shrill voice happily torturing him. God, it's just like he's able to hear her already: _look at you, what a big boy you are, freaking out because you might be turning into a proper human being, seriously, get laid already, Lehnsherr._ Ugh. Now he feels like punching something – or someone, maybe. More likely himself.  
His head won't stop hurting, all the toothpaste he owns doesn't seem to be enough to get rid of the taste of the shockingly cheap wine he drank, and Shaw is not going to be pleased with him: he'll either blame Erik for not coming back home earlier and taking care of the house or for not staying there all night trying to impress those Shaw likes to call “the future leaders of the world”. More like a bunch of idiots utterly unable to take care of themselves that got into Oxford because of daddy's money or mommy's breast implants.  
And, again, he got awfully close to having sex with one of those people. Sometimes, Erik cannot believe how stupid he can be. He shouldn't have gone to the party at all – he has important things to do today, and there is no way he can avoid them, no matter how hungover he is or how little sleep he had. Here's something else he seems to have forgotten: he knows it involved him meeting a first year student because for some reason, they were working on the same unduly unconventional subject, but one, he doesn't remember _where_ he is supposed to go, two, he doesn't remember _when_ he's supposed to go, and three, he doesn't remember what the guy's name could possibly be. At least, they will have something to talk about, which means he won't have to fumble through the whole awful usual small talk. Great. Erik always dreamt of trying to explain his unfinished thesis to some rich frat boy that probably won't listen to a word he'll say while trying not to let the alcohol going through his system get the best of him, anyway.  
  
Erik spits toothpaste in the sink for the fourth time, then looks at himself in the mirror: even though he tried his best to clean yesterday away, he still looks like a man you wouldn't want to pass by in the middle of the night – the circles under his eyes are a deep shade of purple, akin to the color of the clematis his mother used to wear in her hair when he was very young - how gay would it seem to Emma that he knows more about flowers than most of the girls they know? Well, anyway: Erik looks like trash, and all the clean shirts in the world won't be able to change that. He'll just have to pray that nobody important will pay too much attention to him today. He should really leave now, before Shaw deigns to leave his room and sees him in such a pitiful state – better safe than sorry.

“I'm going,” Erik says, loud enough he can't be accused of sneaking out but still not quite enough to be sure anyone actually heard him. And so he does, closing quietly the heavy, pretentious-looking door behind him, and then, he starts to run.

 

 


	2. II. sirens calling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm dedicating this chapter to Orane for playing Mario Sunshine next to me the entire time I was writing Erik's part & also to @Atonement for being my first review and therefore the love of my life.  
> Also, short again, but it's getting angsty! yay!

  
« _& you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time; but the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once._ »                
                           

* * *

  
CHARLES  
_MARCH 19TH, FIFTEEN MINUTES PAST NINE IN THE MORNING_  
  
Somewhere outside the mountains of blankets Charles has buried himself under, an alarm is ringing.  
He has been pretending not to hear it for almost half an hour now – the annoying high-pitched tune playing on repeat, taunting him somehow, judgmental and insensitive. Getting up to smash it against a wall would mean actually leaving his bed, which would also mean acknowledging the fact that he is way too high to walk properly. Maybe he shouldn't have taken all those pills, after all. The box lies somewhere on the floor, between a forgotten cup of tea and a cluster of mismatched socks, open, and completely, irremediably empty. He'll have to fetch a new one.  
The sole idea of seeing anyone today makes him feel sick already. Charles winces, wriggling miserably out of bed. Here: he's up now, dragging himself towards the bathroom; he should definitely tidy up, or at least get rid of the outstanding number of Chinese takeaway boxes he somehow managed to stack next to the door, towering ominously above anyone that would dare to use it – one more thing in favor of Charles never leaving his room ever again. Except he doesn't get a say in the matter: today, his biology teacher very enthusiastically arranged for him to meet some older student, declaring it was absolutely necessary for the two of them to discuss their respective views on – well. _Mutations._ Charles never liked that word: it always made him feel like he was doomed to grow another pair of ears at some point of his life, or wake up one morning covered in blue fur – something like that. He heard it for the first time when he was nine; he had spent the prior three weeks begging for people that weren't talking to be _quiet, just for a second, to let him sleep_ , until his constant crying became so annoying that Kurt consented to take him to the hospital.  
The chief psychiatrist's office was awfully white – and so was his face, as soon as he understood what was going on. He was sitting in front of Charles, addressing a vacant smile to no one in particular, thinking: God, _I cannot let anybody find out about this. Fuck, he can hear me- kid, you can hear me, can't you?_  
Charles had just nodded, sitting straight in his chair while Kurt had undertaken the task of explaining how crazy he'd gotten all of sudden, and how dreadful it had been since then. Charles does not remember what his mother was doing – does not remember if she was there at all, does not remember if she ever cared about his only son going to the hospital and not coming back. For Charles did not come back, indeed: he spent the next five years confined within the walls of a mental institution, his psychiatrist – God, why cannot Charles remember his name? - promising him daily that he would find a way to make it all better. The first thing he tried was electroconvulsive therapy. Charles was ten.  
  
Charles does not want to think about it. It never does him any good.  
He takes a quick shower, grasps the first relatively clean clothes he manages to find, gets dressed and leaves, avoiding skillfully his very own obelisk of cardboard boxes. The corridor is empty; his neighbors are either still asleep or already in class, leaving the building blissfully silent. Charles is feeling slightly dizzy, the influence of the drugs he took a few hours before more obvious now that he is actually standing – swaying, really, stumbling on every step of the stairs as he staggers his way outside. He takes a quick look at the note he shoved carelessly in a pocket of his jeans: _bodleian libraries, ten am. ask for lehnsherr._ Good. At least – for once in his life - Charles isn't late yet.  
He'll just have to pretend his interest in mutations has nothing to do with him personally, and everything should go just fine.

 

* * *

   
ERIK _–_  
_MARCH 19TH, FORTY FIVE MINUTES PAST TEN IN THE MORNING_  
  
Erik is late.  
It's not even entirely his fault: his professor indicated him the wrong library twice in a row, forcing him to run at full speed through the entire university – _twice_ , seriously, he's starting to think the man is playing some kind of practical joke on him. Erik is late by almost an hour now, which is literally the worst thing that can ever happen to him; how are you supposed to make a good first impression when the person you're supposed to meet already hates you for leaving them waiting, not even sure you'll show up at all? _God fucking damn it._  
At least he's almost certain he's got the right place this time – if not, someone is seriously getting his ass handed to them, professor or not. Erik walks up to the reception, breathless and probably covered in sweat; the woman in charge is apparently busy trying to paint her nails without anyone noticing, and failing miserably – Erik couldn't care less, though. Let her know the consequences of not doing what you're getting paid for.  
  
“I'm Lehnsherr,” he says sharply. “Any idea if anyone's here for me?”  
The woman looks up, startled and trying frantically to hide her hands under her desk – then seems incredibly relieved by the fact that _oh, it's just a student._ She even spares him a smile. “Lehnsherr, right? Yes, someone has been asking for you. I believe you should find him around the biology corner.”  
“Alright, thanks.” His voice sounds a little too cold to be polite, but God, he doesn't want to thank her – she doesn't deserve it. He turns away without a glance; so, at least, the guy did not leave. Maybe he really does care, after all.  
Erik must now face another major issue: he has no idea what said guy looks like. He walks hazardously through the library's aisles, staring intently at anyone passing by; God, he had forgotten how scary sleep deprivation made him look, he almost feels like apologizing to all the girls hurrying away from him – but he's way too late to be nice, and it's not like he can _help_ looking like a damn terrorist. The biology division shouldn't be too far now; one step, then two, ten, twenty-five. Here it is: now _where_ did that boy hide?  
Erik is standing near the entrance of the room, looking around; a few tables are occupied by small groups of students, whispering to each other over their workbooks, trying to restrain themselves from laughing. Erik frowns, wondering if, maybe, he got the wrong section – and then he sees him.  
  
He's sitting alone in the back of the room, next to a window; there's a book open in front of him, but he doesn't seem to be really focused on his reading – his eyes keep drifting to the ceiling, like he's trying to remember something important. There's something messy about him; about his hair, not quite curly but still managing to defy gravity, about his clothes – is this a _cardigan? Really?_ – obviously too large for his stature, about the somewhat faltering look on his face. The kind of mess you'd like to fix, in a way, if you could: positively pathetic. It makes Erik want to turn away – he never dealt well with miserable people, and he knows full well this one won't be an exception. He goes, still; walking directly to him, making himself the tallest he can – arms crossed and back straightened, just like Shaw taught him.  
  
“I'm Erik Lehnsherr,” Erik says, stopping right in front of the desk – from up close, you cannot ignore his eyes gleaming, an unhealthy spark, glazed. “You're the biology guy, right?”  
“Oh, hello,” replies a soft voice, sounding almost surprised – maybe he did think Erik would not come, after all –, his expression suddenly much less aghast. “Is it ten already? I didn't realize- I mean, yes. I am. Nice to meet you.” He's holding out his hand for him to shake it, now, his hand, almost feminine-looking; “My name is Xavier. But you can call me Charles, if you wish.”

 


	3. III. comets

_« I still search for you in crowds_  
_in empty fields and soaring clouds_  
_in city lights and passing cars_  
_on winding roads and wishing stars »  
_

* * *

  _  
CHARLES –  
__MARCH 19TH, ELEVEN IN THE MORNING  
  
_ He could call him pretty much anything he'd like and Charles would be too exhausted to care, anyway.  
Erik Lehnsherr; now that he's heard the name pronounced properly, it does ring a bell – so _this_ is the guy literally all the girls in his promotion are excited about. Charles can somehow see why; Lehnsherr must be fairly attractive, when you're into gigantic frightening men. He has strong features, something resolute about the set of his jaw – not the kind of person you'd be especially keen to irritate. Even his handshake seems annoyed, as his fingers brush against Charles's, obviously reluctant to touch him. He sits down then, grabbing the nearest empty chair and meticulously positioning it at the opposite end of the table.  
  
“Charles, err, right.” His voice is awfully deep, like it's coming directly from the depths of Hell – the hint of a foreign accent too, long forgotten. “So you're working on mutations too, right? Thought I was the only one around here.”  
“So I've been told,” Charles replies faintly, the fear already building up – his anxiety suddenly around his throat like a boa constrictor, ready to choke him. God, he doesn't want to talk about it. “You-” a deep breath there, Charles trying to gulp down the memories pooling in the back of his mouth, ugly and bitter; “your shirt is really white.”  
  
Just like the psychiatrist's office, deep inside what's left of his mind. Why does he _have_ to see it everywhere? Is there really no way for him to have a proper conversation with anyone without getting triggered by the simplest things? Charles really wishes he stayed in bed, now, really wishes he could get up and leave right now without anyone seeing him, really wishes he didn't take all his pills – God, how much _is too much ?_ The room has been spinning for way too long – , really wishes Erik Lehnsherr would stop looking at him with such a confused look on his face. Charles tries to smile; it feels like trying on new clothes for the first time, clothes that would not quite fit, his lips somehow not obeying him.  
  
“I- yes. I mean, thank you? I wash it myself?” Lehnsherr looks like he's trying to decide whether Charles is crazy or not, and Charles cannot blame him, really, for he's starting to ask himself the same question: what on earth is _wrong_ with him? “Err, are you alright? Don't take it wrong, but you look like you're about to throw up or something.”  
“That must be the lighting,” Charles says immediately, “you see, my skin- _oh_ , who am I kidding.” He sighs – whatever, really, it doesn't even truly matter what this guy thinks of him, anyway, it's not like they'll ever talk to each other again. “I've just had a really rough night, I apologize. You went through all this trouble to discuss your thesis with me and I'm-” His head hurts _so much_ , something pulsing at his temples, “-basically as useful as a dying whale.” The words are flowing from his mouth, now, unrestrained; “genetics. There's still so much to discover about them, really, about why we turned out to be like this – us, the human race, homo sapiens sapiens, all that stuff. Still so much to know about what we will become next, and why, what genus will-” Charles grasps the edge of the table with both hands, trying to keep himself from swaying and the room from spinning so much – unsuccessfully. “What genus will wipe us out.”  
  


* * *

   
ERIK  
_MARCH 19TH, ELEVEN IN THE MORNING_  
  
Erik remembers him halfway through his speech.  
Must be something he said – must be something in his voice, still somewhat boyish, soft-spoken, something in the way his entire body is slightly swinging from side to side, unable to stand still, something in the constant agitation of his fingers on the desk. Must be the oddness of what he's wearing, like he was directly snatched from another century: Erik cannot see his belt from where he's sitting, but he's sure, now, that he'd recognize its buckle with a single touch.  
Erik remembers Charles – Emma spoke about him at the party, pointing out how much prettier he would be without his shapeless sweater, wondering if maybe she could get him to take it out, and Erik laughed, of course, then drank some more – _drank too much._ God, now he feels like he's the one who's about to throw up. It's all coming back to him, a sickening flow of drunken memories: his own hands between this guy's legs, him motionless and silent, unresponsive as Erik tried to- _fuck_ , he cannot deal with this, the idea of it, fuck, fuck, _fuck.  
_ Charles is looking at him now, probably waiting for an answer; a _reaction,_ of any kind. That, in itself, is so terribly ironic that Erik would probably laugh if he didn't feel so badly like screaming.

“A really rough night,” he repeats, feeling incredibly stupid. “Listen, I- I'm sorry you came all this way for- oh, _fuck.”_ Erik stands up, knocking down his chair in the process – the ambient shatter goes quiet all at once. Erik needs to leave, and he needs to leave _now_. “I'll tell the professor that- God I don't _know._ Whatever.” He's trying his best not to look at Charles's face – not to wonder if he _knows_ too, if he cares at all. “You better get some sleep, you look like a ghost. I'm sorry, alright? I'm an asshole.”  
“What on earth are you talking about?” Charles asks as he turns away. “Is everything okay? Maybe I can-”  
  
Erik isn't able to pick up the rest of the sentence – he doesn't really want to hear it, anyway, that fragile-looking boy's voice, worried and incredulous and confused all at once. Erik knows he cannot allow himself to lose it somewhere he's surrounded by so many people – too much metal, too much possible accidents, fuck, he _has_ to calm down before anything happens, _anything;_ he can feels the pipes shaking all around the building, inside the walls, under his feet as he practically runs to the door.

 


	4. IV. paper boats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS AT THE END IF YOU'RE WORRIED MAYBE  
> Jenni this is for you because I'm so so so proud of you okay (and also because I know you somehow wanted to suffer)  
> Also Géraldine I'm waiting for the actual tears on your face bye  
> (Also I'm trying to update this daily but sometimes my life catches up with me I'm absolutely sorry)

_« We feel a little pity but don't empathize_  
_the old are getting older watch a young man die_  
_a mother and a son and someone you know_  
_smile at each other and realize you don't_ »

 

* * *

 

CHARLES  
_MARCH 19H, ELEVEN IN THE AFTERNOON_  
  
Charles is sitting on his bed, still trying to figure out what on earth he could possibly have done.  
He'd been at it for hours, now, the scene replaying itself in his mind like a broken record: Erik Lehnsherr's eyes, staring at him like he'd just seen a ghost, wide open and full of something dreadfully akin to _fear_ , Erik Lehnsherr's hands balled into fists, like he felt a sudden need to punch something, Erik Lehnsherr's voice going harsher, his foreign accent suddenly much more obvious - German, Charles should have guessed, something sharp about the R's. Erik Lehnsherr's face turning white, then awfully red; his back hunched as he left as fast as humanly possible.  
Charles didn't move – there's no way in the world he could have caught up with him anyway, not in the terrible shape he was in this morning. Charles didn't move, numb somehow, and thoroughly abashed; he always knew for a fact his company wasn't especially enjoyable, but there's a world of difference between annoying people and making them plainly run away from you after less than two minutes of conversation. Charles didn't move, trying quite desperately to convince himself that every single person in the room was not, in fact, looking eagerly at him, ready to relish his misery like as many human-shaped vultures. For Charles was miserable indeed: what did he do _wrong_ this time?  
Charles is sitting on his bed, playing mindlessly with the needle he just drew out of his forearm – the syringe rolled somewhere on the floor, out of his reach, along with the spoon and the lighter, along what's left of his daily dose. He'll soon feel the rush; his mouth going dry and his skin getting warmer, the room somehow softer as his own thoughts finally dissolve into the drug, along with everyone else's. Maybe that's why he cannot stop obsessing about what happened this morning: as Erik Lehnsherr suddenly got up, Charles could not help but reach out for his mind, as someone else could have reached for his sleeve.  
  
Muted by the pills, the pain he felt in there was wordless, like some kind of old horror movie, still in black and white – mostly black, darker and darker as the fear overwhelmed him entirely. He felt it going right through him, nailing him to his seat like Jesus to the cross and just as helpless, somehow: distorted images and childhood nightmares, inextricably linked. A gunshot then, and Charles was out because Erik was gone. Charles knows he didn't have the right – knows there's no way he could apologize for diving so deep, for diving at all, knows there's no way he could explain it to anyone without going straight back to the hospital. And still, here he is now, asking himself the same questions over and over again: what did he _do_? What did he say to trigger so many dreadful things at once? Were those things actual memories or did Charles's medication deform them somehow? More importantly, how is he going to be able to face that guy ever again without feeling immediately sick?  
  
This is the reason it all went wrong – the reason he couldn't leave his room at the clinic, the reason he let the doctors do all these experiments on his damn brain, the reason he thought so many times about killing himself: all the _pain_ out there, overflowing, the constant agony that wasn't his but that he could not help but feel anyway. It had been years since the last time Charles slipped and looked into someone's head, years that might have been lethargic but were bearable, at least – at last. Now he has to do it all over again.  
Charles lets the heroin drown him to sleep.

 

* * *

  
ERIK  
_MARCH 20TH, TWO IN THE MORNING_  
  
Emma must have called a thousand times by now, the phone ringing non-stop from the bottom of Erik's bag; she knows better than to just show up at the door and ask him what the fuck is wrong with him, so at least he doesn't have to worry about that. He knows he'll have to come up with a good excuse at some point – one that could explain why he didn't come to any of their classes today and why he didn't pick up his damn phone. Maybe Erik should throw himself under a car – that, at least, might stop her incessant harassment for a while. There's nothing he'd like to tell her, not right now, not ever: even if he _did_ try to explain, she'd just laugh it off and call him a freak, then probably try to convince him to sneak out of Shaw's house to get wasted with her and her current living sex toy, and get angry with him when he'd flatly refuse. To be fair to Emma, there's nothing he'd like to tell anyone else either: Erik just wants to be left alone, for once, to get a single little moment of _peace_ for himself. Luckily for him, Shaw wasn't home when he came back – wasn't there to tell him how ungrateful it was of Erik to miss an entire day of education worth a small fortune Shaw didn't have to waste on _him_.  
  
_If I didn't take you in you'd be as good as dead. You should be thankful your poor mother died – at least she doesn't have to see how much of a selfish little bastard you grew up to be. Have you seen all these people dying in the streets? Would you like to be like them? You should be happy just to have a roof over your head. You wouldn't even have that much without me, you know that, Erik? Now shut up and take it like the good boy you should be. If you don't stop crying right now I'm gonna give you a good reason to do so, you understand? Just shut up and take it!_  
  
Erik gets up, trying to push the words back where they came from: deep inside the darkest corners of his mind, those even Emma at her worst would not be able to enjoy. He goes to his window, struggling with the lock – just like he struggled with the belt, _fuck_ – for a second before opening it as wide as he can, the air awfully cold, sharp in his lungs. He carefully picks up the cigarette pack he left there the night before – Lucky Strike's, as if smoking could do him any good on this matter. Somehow, Erik still wishes it would. Still wishes he's wrong, that he did absolutely nothing to Charles Xavier – that it's all in his head, as it so often is, that he's not turning into _him_.  
Just like Shaw'd want him to.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW; drug use, implied abuse


End file.
